In the last contest of her 13-year rowing career, Lindsay H. Burns '87 and her partner Teresa Z. Bell rowed a "perfect race" Sunday to claim a silver medal in women's lightweight double sculls at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Burns said that single race had been her entire focus for the last six months and only now is she beginning to realize how much the years of dedication to her sport have paid off.

"It's slowly starting to sink in that I have an Olympic silver medal," Burns said. "We tried to think only of racing that race and beating our opponents instead of thinking about where we were so much that only now is it starting to sink in."

All eyes in the final race were on Romania--the pair favored for the gold--and the boat from the Eastern European nation was ahead from the start.

"We were especially watching Romania," Burns said. "We knew they would be the fastest, but at the same time we weren't discounting the other boats."

In fact, a surge by the Australians brought the eventual bronze-winners to within two seconds of her boat's finish, Burns said.

"It was close but not agonizingly close. We still had to sprint as hard as we could, to focus in and jump hard," Burns said. "I knew I couldn't even spend a fraction of a second looking around and wondering where we were."

Burns said her immediate reaction after the finish was to wonder if she could have rowed even better and caught the Romanians.

But once it sunk in that she had won the Olympic silver medal, everything came into perspective, she said.

With the victory coming at the end of her career, Burns said those she has competed against for years, particularly those from other countries, have been very supportive and have helped make the experience a satisfying cap to a major part of her life.

"It's great now to be on the other side of line, to have finished that side of life successfully," she said.

Burns said she rowed for the first time shortly after arriving at Harvard in 1983. She continued rowing as a doctoral student in neuroscience at Cambridge University in England.

After taking a two-year sabbatical from the sport, she returned to competition in 1990 and has been rowing with the U.S. national team ever since.

Now that the Olympics are over, Burns said she plans to return to her post-doctoral work and McLean's Hospital in Boston before focusing on her next obstacle--finding a job.

"It's really good sense of accomplishment," Burns said. "It's been a lot of work--I can't even begin to convey how much work and how much intensity we have put into this."

Burns' medal is the 70th won by a Harvard affiliate since the University's athletes took part in the first modern Olympics 100 years ago in Athens.

The silver will be the school's only medal in these games--Harvard's best hopes had been in the women's eights which featured Elizabeth S. "Betsy" McCagg '89 and her sister Mary R. McCagg '89.

The crew was favored to win the gold but slipped to fourth behind the Romanians, Canadians and Belarussians.

Distance runner Meredith L. Rainey '90 was favored in the 800 meters but took seventh in the semifinals and did not qualify for the medal race.

Nicholas N. Sweeney '92 did not qualify for the discus finals for his native Ireland; J. Adam Holland '94 took first in the B finals of the men's pairs sculls; Cecile U. Tucker '91 took second in the B final of the women's quad sculls; and Pingtjan Thum '00 did not qualify for the finals in several swimming events for Singapore